P’ment dissolution was made void: TNA The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) asserted that the Gazette Notification dissolving Parliament was made void when the date of the election was pushed to 20 June. Former Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran told The Morning that the power to dissolve Parliament early was subject to conditions. “Now that the date is fixed beyond 2 June, I think the legal position would be that the dissolution of Parliament on 2 March is now invalid. Because the power to dissolve parliament ahead of time is conditional to the fact that the new parliament must meet in three months,” he said, noting that if it becomes impossible to hold elections on 2 June, the dissolution of Parliament was not valid. Furthermore, he said that the TNA didn’t believe the coronavirus situation in the country would allow elections to be conducted on the new date, especially with the need to carry out campaigning activities. “The TNA doesn’t think that the conditions would be alright for an election to be held on 20 June because it’s not just about the day of the election; the run-up to the election and the campaigning will open up the county to a grave risk of this virus spreading,” he said. Sumanthiran said the TNA had told the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday (21) that it should not have set a date for the election without consulting the political parties beforehand. “We told the Election Commission at a meeting that we don’t think a date should have been given without consulting the political parties. So our position is that political parties ought to have been consulted, like they have been doing previously,” he said, adding that the Commission had not responded to the TNA’s position that the political parties should have been consulted. However, he said that the Commission has assured that 20 June date for the election was subject to review. “The Commission said that the date was subject to review and that they would review the situation soon, in any case, before giving the candidates their respective numbers. So we requested the Commission to make it plain to the country that this is not a definite date and that it is only a provisional date and subject to review,” Sumanthiran said, adding that the EC has assured that they would make an announcement on the provisionality of the 20 June date.